The Church of the Holy Child Read online

  “Jesus, what time did you get up Callahan? You beat me to it.”

  Griff laughed, something I hadn’t heard for weeks and I was more grateful to Katie for that than for anything she held in her arms.

  “I’ve been known to drink more than one cup,” he said. “And you brought the good stuff.” He reached for the cup with the Starbuck’s logo.

  “How is she?” Katie asked.

  “Mending,” Griff said.

  “And you?”

  “Same.”

  Griff took the purple bear and the bag of donuts from Katie, kissed her on the cheek and excused himself to check on Allie. After he left, I relayed the story to her about how we’d found them both in the cellar of Sandra’s building.

  “Jesus,” she said when I’d finished. “I can’t even imagine everything that’s going through his head. “How the hell do you stay sane when you get hit with all that at once?”

  “He’ll manage. And he’s got us.”

  “I’m going to the office,” Katie said, standing. “Tell him I have everything under control and not to worry.”

  “Thanks,” I said and gave her a hug. I watched her until the elevator doors closed then finished my coffee on the way to Allie’s room.

  By ten o’clock Allie was sitting up in the bed. A fresh bandage ran over her shoulder, under her arm and across her back. I’d brushed her hair and a nurse had rewrapped her ankles and wrists with fresh white gauze.

  “Dr. Adams will be in shortly to give you discharge instructions,” the nurse said before leaving the room.

  “She can go home now?” Griff asked.

  “She’ll be more comfortable there.”

  When he came into Allie’s room Dr. Adams told us what we already knew, broken collarbone, lacerations on her wrists and ankles, concussion, six stitches in her bottom lip, all visible, all treatable. To his credit, he also handed Griff a piece of paper with the names of two therapists who specialized in adolescents.

  Allie had been extremely quiet all morning, giving in occasionally to a deluge of tears that she tried hard to keep in check.

  “Honey, let it go. It’s okay to cry,” Griff said as he held her, but she fought to be stoic, her father’s daughter.

  “Can we see Mom before we leave?” she asked.

  “Absolutely,” Griff said and glanced at me.

  He wasn’t sure and neither was I. Eliza on a ventilator might not be the medicine the doctor ordered for Allie. But Griff kept his promise and we detoured into Critical Care on our way out.

  Griff wheeled Allie’s chair up close to her mother’s bedside. Eliza’s face had been washed and treated, but was still indicative of the beatings she’d withstood. Her hair was clean and brushed. A bandage of white gauze covered her throat. Her eyes were closed and she looked relaxed, almost meditative as her chest rose and fell rhythmically. Had it not been for the tube exiting her mouth and running to the ventilator beside her and the push and release of air hissing like a snake in the silence of the room, Allie might have been okay.

  But she wasn’t. She screamed flailing her good arm repeatedly against the crisp white sheet that covered her mother.

  “Allie,” Griff grabbed her arm. “Stop, that’s not going to help your mother.”

  “But it’s probably helping her,” I mouthed to him over her head.

  She stopped pounding the bed and drew her mother’s hand from beneath the sheet laying her head against it. She stayed that way for a long time whispering to Eliza. Griff and I stepped back against the wall giving her privacy with her mother.

  I wondered, as I watched her, what it must be like to have a relationship with your mother like the one Allie obviously had with Eliza. As much as Allie groaned and rolled her eyes at every suggestion or piece of advice Eliza doled out. She savored it. She expected it. And it sustained her. Eliza’s hovering was simply love. Parenting, I realized, is in the details. Eliza would be pleased to know that she’d finally taught me something.

  On the way to Griff’s apartment we picked up some soup and ice cream. Not surprisingly, Allie wasn’t interested in either so we made her as comfortable as possible in her bedroom. Thankfully, we’d left the hospital with some heavy-duty meds and she fell asleep almost immediately. She needed the rest, but more than that she needed the escape they provided.

  Griff was in the kitchen filling two bowls with soup and two glasses with wine. He sank into a chair and looked up at me, exhaustion weighed heavy on his face.

  I kissed his forehead and sat beside him reaching for the wine before the soup. We sipped our drinks too tired to talk and held hands instead, conveying everything that needed to be said.

  A knock interrupted our silence and when Griff opened the door Rhyder and John stood shoulder to shoulder.

  “How’s she doing?” Rhyder asked stepping inside.

  Griff shrugged. “She’ll be okay.”

  “She will,” John said looking at Griff. “She’s got you.”

  I could see the pain in John’s eyes and the affinity he felt with Griff.

  Rhyder had a flight to catch and John was driving him to the airport.

  “I’ve enjoyed working with you, Cole,” Rhyder said, his hand outstretched.

  Griff smirked. “Now don’t say things you don’t mean.”

  “Let’s just say, for the most part.”

  “Agreed,” Griff said and clasped his hand.

  “If you need anything in the future, don’t hesitate to call me.”

  “Even though we’re just PIs?”

  I asked. Rhyder flashed a sheepish grin and nodded. “Always the wise-ass Ms. Callahan, but yes, even though you’re just PIs.”

  “I’ll miss you too,” I said and clasped his hand.

  After they left, I called Beth Jones. She’d already heard most of it from the evening news, but I gave her the details and she was anxious to hear how Allie was doing.

  “Too many children are losing their mothers,” she said.

  I agreed with her and after I got off the phone I thought about Sandra having lost hers at such a young age and the effect of that on her life. Not that I felt the least bit sorry for her, but for a child, the loss of their mother is devastating. I hadn’t lost my own per se. She’d been in my life as a physical presence, but nothing more than that. I have no memory of her arms around me or of a time when I sought her out for comfort. But I had Amy. And Brooke will have Beth. Childhood is a crapshoot, but for better or worse, most of us manage to survive.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Allie didn’t return to school. Instead Griff got her a tutor and the three of us spent a lot of time together, talking, crying and occasionally remembering how to laugh. Eliza was transferred to a rehab facility with an unknown time frame. She still required assistance for breathing, but aside from that was recovering. The hope was with continued rest, her lungs would mend enough to take over and life could go back to normal, or as normal as it would ever get. Once Eliza was settled in, Griff surprised Allie and me with tickets to the Virgin Islands. Two weeks in paradise before school, laundry, grocery shopping and work once again dominated our lives.

  Hopefully a little beachcombing and snorkeling would be both cathartic and cleansing. Allie’s wounds had healed on the outside, though the inside would take a lifetime, maybe two. Over the past few weeks she’d explained in bits and pieces how she and Eliza had both been in the hole. Allie’s injuries had been the result of Sandra showing Eliza what helping her mother leave had meant. Eliza begged her to let Allie go and finally managed to free herself and wriggle out of the hole. But when Sandra came back and caught her, Allie had lain in the dark listening to Sandra try and choke the life from her mother. When she told us that part, she’d climbed into Griff’s lap and pressed her face into his neck. The two of them held each other and cried. “I kept telling Mom to be strong, that you’d come,” she whispered. “And you did.”

  The day before we left, I went to the office to wrap up the cases I’d been working on.
The pilfering bookkeeper had confessed to the owners and rather than press charges they’d helped her out of debt and reinstated her. Every once in a while humanity regained its integrity, but never for long. The cheating husband also agreed to his shortcomings then packed his bags and left his wife and three children on their front lawn watching him drive away.

  Katie would check messages and return calls while we were gone, but she and Travis were taking a little trip of their own. They were heading for Nashville where Travis would wear his new leather jacket and be one of the many hopefuls on CMT’s new reality show, Next Superstar, the American Idol for country singers.

  Sandra was in jail. If she was lucky, she’d get life without parole instead of the needle, but that was doubtful. She was firm in her belief that it had been her mission to save the children and take care of those who God had turned His back on. She’d killed Rosa’s mother in Missouri and after providing the authorities with false papers, had taken Rosa with her. If she was still waiting for the lawyer I’d promised, she was going to wait a very long time.

  John drove us to Logan Airport in his black Suburban. More than a few heads turned when we climbed out, expecting to see someone of importance emerging from the official vehicle.

  “Thanks, John,” Griff said taking the last of our luggage from his hand.

  “Have a good trip. You three deserve it.” He tugged on Allie’s braid then turned to Griff. “I was thinking that maybe when you get back you’d take a look at something.”

  Griff raised his eyebrows.

  “I got a postcard a few days ago. It just says, “OK,” that’s all.”

  “Postmark?”

  “St. Claire.”

  Saint Claire was as far north as you could go in Maine before crossing the Canadian border.

  Griff looked at John for a long moment before answering. “You think it’s her?’

  “I’m gonna find out. Wouldn’t mind a little help.”

  “Back in two weeks,” Griff said. “I’ll call you the minute we land.”

  The happenings over the last few weeks had deepened the connection between Griff and John even though words of that nature don’t pass between tough guys. There was a shared empathy regarding daughters and an understanding of the fears that held sleep at bay in the middle of the night.

  Three hours after leaving Logan we were on a ferry to St. John surrounded by turquoise water and tourists smelling of rum and coconut oil. Layers of worry and grief slipped from my skin and wafted away on the tropical breeze. I hoped Allie and Griff were feeling it too.

  As soon as we’d checked into our room Allie changed into her bathing suit and held up her snorkeling gear. “Ready?”

  “Go for it. We’re right behind you,” Griff said.

  She grabbed a towel and went out the door.

  “It’s good to see her smile.”

  “I wrapped my arms around him. “Thank-you for this.”

  “Two weeks won’t be a cure all, but it’ll be a good break.” He squeezed my bottom, his gesture of preference. “Get your suit on. I’m going after Allie.”

  On the beach, I squinted into the sun from my lounge chair and watched water escape from Allie’s snorkel as she investigated the aquamarine water of Cinnamon Bay. Griff came up wet from a swim and knelt beside me, rummaging through the cooler.

  “I could live here,” he said. “What do you think?”

  “Twist my arm.”

  He cracked a beer and settled in the sand next to my lounge chair, both of us watching Allie.

  “I’ve been thinking about moving out of my apartment,” he said. “I don’t know what will happen with Eliza. I mean if she’ll fully recover. An apartment isn’t a good place for a kid. Allie needs a house with a yard, maybe a pool so she can invite her friends over.”

  “You mean, so you’ll know where she is all the time.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt.”

  “I think that sounds like a good idea and settling into a new place will feel like a fresh start for both of you.”

  He changed position so that he was facing me and stretched his arm across my thighs. “I’d like you to be a part of it too.”

  “After seeing my apartment, you still trust my decorating ability?”

  “I don’t mean decorating. I mean I want you to be a part of Allie and me.”

  I looked at him, not sure if it was the sun or tears blurring his features. “It’s too soon for Allie to deal with another big change in her life,” I said.

  “We don’t have to make any announcements, but coming together under the same roof could be the first step. It’ll let us get the feel of being a family. We won’t make anything official until the time is right.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “I was sure six years ago when you grilled me on the stand. It’s a gut thing.”

  “You’re good with your gut.”

  “Mmm,” he said and pulled me onto the sand.

  I was trying not to cry and to kiss him when Allie yelled. We both sat up and looked toward the water.

  “Baby turtles,” she called. “Hurry.”

  Griff stood and pulled me up beside him. “That takes priority.”

  “Turtles?”

  He lifted my chin to his face and kissed me. “Children,” he said.

  For most of my life, a husband had been out of the question, a child never even a consideration. But sometimes, the bonds we develop with people in our lives turn into paths we never intended to walk and we join hands and continue because letting go is not an option. I took Griff’s hand and we headed down the beach toward Allie.

  AUTHOR BIO

  Patricia Hale received her MFA degree from Goddard College. Her essays have appeared in literary magazines and the anthology, My Heart’s First Steps. Her debut novel, In the Shadow of Revenge, was published in 2013. The Church of the Holy Child is the first book in her PI series featuring the team of Griff Cole and Britt Callahan. Patricia is a member of Sister’s in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, NH Writer’s Project and Maine Writer’s and Publisher’s Alliance. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband, their German shepherd, a bossy Beagle and a grumpy, old cat.